HP's Future Was Fried Before Screaming Fraud

“Better leadership” has always been something for which shareholders of Hewlett-Packard have screamed – except, this has been an every year occurrence. The company has always listened and seems willing to oblige. However, in the process HP has created what has been a revolving door also known as the office of the CEO – one where over the past five years has brought nothing other than broken promises – whether from Carly Fiorina to Mark Hurd who was then followed by Leo Apotheker. Nothing’s changed.

However this time, here arrives Meg Whitman, a leader that I believe is the right person for the job – one that seems to have a firm handle on what ails the company. However, the ghosts of past failures continue to get in her way of putting the company back on track. This time, it was Autonomy, an acquisition that the company now admits was made without proper due diligence as it introduces claims of fraud. So as we try to sort through who’s to blame, we must also consider how much does this news really matter.

I don’t mean to sound insensitive. A $9 billion charge is pretty significant by any standard. But who is willing to raise their hands and say the success of Autonomy would have altered the fate of HP? The long term narrative remains the same. The bigger question for the company is how does it plan to compete more effectively with Apple, Google, Amazon and a slew of more nimble companies that are more prepared for the post-PC era?

HP’s future was grim before this announcement. All we know today is that the company’s previous management was more incompetent than we thought. As of this morning shares were down as much as 13% as the company made another 52-week low of $11.35 – its lowest in 10 years. But this was more the result of the company’s earnings report, which continues to suggest that things are going to get much worse before they get better.

For a detailed view of the company’s fourth quarter earnings, you can read the article written this morning by Forbes’ writer Eric Savitz. But let’s not make the mistake and think that HP was in any better shape than it was - especially since Microsoft essentially felt forced to enter hardware, suggesting that its partners in HP and Dell had become inept . Even Research in Motion’s future seems brighter these days. If that is not a full indictment on HP I don’t know what is.